In Charm's Way
by Le soleil brille pas pour toi
Summary: "Aren't Veela are supposed to be… charming?" Hermione pointed out. "Malfoy is plenty charming! How else does he have all of Slytherin falling at his feet?" Harry demanded. "Right, that probably has nothing to do with his dad's load of gold and everything to do with his smarmy, pointed face," Ron deadpanned. [Written for the QLFC, season 6, round 8] [Nominated for Judges' Pick!]


Author's note

Written for Season 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Round 8: The Korean Wave

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 2

Prompt: K-drama - _Are You Human Too?_ Theme - finding out someone was not the same species as you

Optional prompts:

2\. (colour) aquamarine  
9\. (object) kaleidoscope  
12\. (dialogue) "I believe you. But I believe everybody else too."

Word count (excluding author's note): 2,315

Betas: Story Please, sekdaniels

* * *

I've taken some liberties with the actual canon events in order to set up my storyline. Namely, in Order of the Phoenix, Mrs. Weasley goes to Diagon Alley to do the school shopping while the kids stay at 12 Grimmauld Place, but I'm changing it so that they go along with her. Additionally, since there's not a lot of information available on Veela, I'm going to borrow from fanon wisdom on them, as well as make up some tidbits of my own.

* * *

 **In Charm's Way**

Harry, Ron, and Hermione trotted along Diagon Alley, following Mrs. Weasley toward Gringotts to retrieve the gold they'd need for their school supplies. Harry breathed deeply, enjoying the first fresh air he'd had access to in weeks. He was surprised that Mrs. Weasley hadn't managed to attract more volunteers to help her with the shopping; after spending so long cooped up at 12 Grimmauld Place with nothing to do but clean, Harry readily welcomed the chance to go. Even the presence of their armed guard—Tonks, disguised to look like an unassuming teenager, following them lazily at about ten paces, and Hestia Jones, wearing an enormous, floppy sun hat to obscure her face, leading the charge ahead of the party—couldn't put a damper on his mood. The sights and sounds of the lively street were an excellent distraction from the worries that had been haunting him all summer.

'Fred and George must be thrilled to have five minutes without Mum watching them like a hawk,' Ron mused quietly, and Harry grinned in reply. That would explain their abstention from the trip—this would be valuable time to work on Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products without fear of their mother walking in on them.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Weasley was continuing the irritated rant she'd been muttering on repeat since the students' Hogwarts letters had arrived that morning. 'In all my years… Sending out the letters on August 31st! Every wizarding family in Britain will be here scrambling to do their shopping today… Flourish and Blotts will be a madhouse… The nerve of that school!'

And indeed, Diagon Alley was perhaps more packed than Harry had ever seen it. On the short walk from the Leaky Cauldron to Gringotts, they had already crossed paths with several friends and housemates, but Mrs. Weasley, intent on tackling their shopping as quickly as possible, didn't allow them to even slow their pace to wave hello.

At Gringotts, Tonks loitered near the grand doorway to keep watch while the others filed inside. Mrs. Weasley quickly spotted Bill (who had recently taken a desk job at the bank so as to be closer to the Order) and forgot her grievances for a moment. 'Oh! Let's pay Bill a visit, shall we?'

As she bustled over to Bill's queue, Hestia surreptitiously placed herself in a neighbouring line, which, Harry noticed with a start, was being managed by none other than Fleur Delacour. He turned to point her out to Ron, but judging by the latter's glazed stare in her direction, he had already noticed.

It didn't take long for her to spot them, either. ''Arry!' she chimed pleasantly, abandoning her client mid-transaction to hurry over and greet him. Harry had grown somewhat used to her charm over the course of the Triwizard Tournament, though he hadn't seen her for several weeks now, so when she hugged him, he couldn't help the little flurry of butterflies that erupted in his stomach. 'And you must be Bill's little bruzzer,' she said, turning to Ron.

'Er, yeah, we've met befo—'

'Ah, 'Ermione, a plezzure as always!'

After briefly explaining about her new job there to practice English and doling out some parting pleasantries, Fleur returned to her increasingly impatient customers, and Harry noticed for the first time that Draco Malfoy and one of his Slytherin mates had arrived and borne witness to the spectacle.

'Well, even if Potter's gone mad, at least he's still got his penchant for public dramatics. Hogwarts wouldn't be Hogwarts without it.' Malfoy's sarcastic tone carried over from the queue he'd joined and Harry did his best to ignore it, not wanting to give Mrs. Weasley or his guard any excuse to send him home early.

'Snap out of it, Nott,' Malfoy snarled, seemingly annoyed that his gibe had gotten a reaction from neither his target nor his companion.

Nott shook himself from his Fleur-induced trance and redirected his attention to Malfoy apologetically. 'Salazar's pants,' he swore. 'How d'you manage to ignore that bloody Veela?'

'I'm part Veela myself, you know,' Malfoy boasted. 'So she's got no effect on me.'

This revelation left Harry reeling, and he forgot all about Malfoy's taunt, turning to stare at the boy in question. Malfoy? A _Veela_? Did anyone else know about this? How had _he_ not known about this? _Could Malfoy shoot fireballs like the Veela he'd seen at the Quidditch World Cup?!_

Malfoy soon noticed Harry's gaze and interrupted his train of thought. 'That's right, Potter. Now you know the reason you can't keep your eyes off me.'

Harry reddened but was spared the trouble of coming up with a decent retort, as his party was now being directed to follow a goblin to their vaults. The last thing he saw before disappearing into Gringotts' underground was Malfoy's satisfied smirk, the image of which plagued his mind for the rest of the day.

* * *

When they arrived at Hogwarts, Harry took the first opportunity available to pay a visit to the library, eliciting Ron's intense worry and Hermione's confused approval.

'I told you the other day what Malfoy said in Gringotts, didn't I? I need to look up Veela and see exactly what kind of power he's got to use against us,' he explained as he prepared to leave the common room, visions of fireballs and talons dancing in his head.

Hermione, though not terribly concerned over what dreaded Veela abilities Malfoy could be hiding, offered to keep him company and study while he researched. 'It's never too early to start preparing for O.W.L.s,' she'd reasoned. However, when George, passing by at that moment, told her with an impressively straight face that most students started preparing by the end of their fourth year and that she'd have a lot of catching up to do, her bout of hyperventilation and subsequent screeching fit at George when she realised he was joking left her in no fit state to sit quietly enough for Madam Pince's strict requirements, and Harry was left to begin his research on his own.

He began with his own collection of books amassed from his years of taking Care of Magical Creatures, but found that these texts tended to focus on beasts native to Britain and its neighbouring countries, and they didn't tell him anything more about Veela than what he'd witnessed himself.

On his second trip to the library, he managed to find some more general books on magical creatures and learned a few new facts: Veela typically reproduce asexually by laying eggs; Veela hatch in an avian form and cannot assume a human form until they reach adulthood; Veela can stir up magical windstorms with their wings, and have been known to work together to create tornadoes when particularly angry; Veela occasionally choose a human mate, and in doing so forfeit their ability to change into their avian form.

It was all interesting information, but it centred on full-blooded Veela, and Harry wasn't quite sure which traits could be passed on to part-Veela wizards. When he complained of this over breakfast one morning, shooting suspicious glances at the Slytherin table all the while, it didn't take long for Hermione to come to the rescue as usual. That evening she dropped a dusty-looking tome on his lap that turned out to be a Polish-written book on Eastern European wizarding culture. With the help of a handy translation spell she showed him, Harry found a section devoted to a history of the interactions between Veela and wizardkind.

He was shocked to learn that during a particular bout of anti-gay sentiment in Ukraine, Veela were captured for use as a heterosexuality test, where any warlock who didn't put on a convincing enough show of being mesmerised by them was arrested. As far as intermarriage, he read that the looks and charm of a Veela progenitor would be passed on for a number of generations depending on the Veela's level of power, and many part-Veela wizards retained a particular mastery of fire- and wind-type spells. In one curious case, a half-Veela witch showed an ability to communicate with various species of birds, and ended up leading a group of ospreys in a violent takeover of a Slovenian wizarding town.

When he'd read all the relevant material he could find, Harry took to ranting to his friends about what he'd discovered and how it might possibly relate to Malfoy's characteristics.

'I watched him in potions earlier,' he reported one day while they were lazing on the grass by the lake. 'Have you ever noticed how quickly he lights his cauldron? It always takes me two or three goes.'

'That's hardly an indication of anything,' Hermione refuted. 'I don't usually have trouble lighting my cauldron either.'

'I don't understand why you lot aren't taking this seriously,' Harry fumed. 'You'd better not look at me for help when he sets a bloody kestrel on you for a laugh.'

'Look, it's impressive the amount of research you've put into this, but shouldn't you stick to the basics here?' Hermione reasoned.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, Veela are supposed to be… charming,' she pointed out.

'Malfoy is plenty charming! How else does he have all of Slytherin falling at his feet?' Harry demanded.

'Right, that probably has nothing to do with his dad's load of gold and everything to do with his smarmy, pointed face,' Ron deadpanned.

Harry harrumphed at his friends' sound arguments, and turned to seek other support. 'Ginny, you've dated boys; you know what's what. Tell them Malfoy's charming.'

Both Ginny and Hermione seemed mildly offended by his statement, but the former replied, 'Harry, I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm top of my year in Charms, and it is my professional opinion that Malfoy hasn't a single charm in his pale, spindly body.'

'Luna?' Harry asked, reaching his last resort. 'What do you think?'

Luna, who had been looking through some sort of small kaleidoscope throughout the whole conversation, turned to peer at him through it. 'I think you're looking particularly aquamarine today,' she confided.

Soon afterward, his friends picked themselves up to return to the castle for dinner, and Harry decided to stay behind and sulk, still annoyed at their lack of support.

'Come join us when you get over your crush on Malfoy,' Ginny called over her shoulder as they departed.

'I DO _NOT_ HAVE A CRUSH ON—' Harry stopped himself just in time, remembering that several other groups of students were still lingering nearby. He picked up a stone and threw it furiously into the lake.

Luna finally put down her kaleidoscope and turned to regard Harry intently. 'I believe you,' she told him. 'But I believe everyone else too.'

'Er… Thanks?' Harry wasn't sure quite what she meant, but at this point he'd take what he could get.

She stood and handed him the kaleidoscope. 'This might help.'

He tentatively looked through it at her. It distorted his view to the point that he could barely tell he was looking at a person, but he could tell that it gave her a distinct scarlet hue. Directing it at his own hand, he noticed that he did indeed display a pale blue-green shade as Luna had earlier suggested. 'What do the colours mean?' he asked curiously.

'I'm still sorting that out,' Luna confessed. 'Let me know if you figure anything out!' She waved cheerily and headed back to the castle herself.

Harry peered through the kaleidoscope again and looked around the grounds. It was difficult to make anything out through its distortions, but it seemed that each person had a particular colour assigned to them. In fact, there were only two people in the area who shared the same shade, but it took him quite a while to notice it, since they were pressed together snogging on the grass and he mistook them for a single person the first time he glanced their way.

From the far end of the lake, a bluish figure was making its way toward him. It wasn't until it had nearly reached him that Harry noticed it was nearly the same shade of aquamarine as himself. He dropped the kaleidoscope with a start and found himself facing off with Malfoy. 'Trying to spot your friends, Potter? Or have you forgotten you don't have any?'

'Shove it, Malfoy.' Harry ignored the emotion he felt burning in the pit of his stomach and immediately stood to return to the castle, wanting to escape the scene before his day could be fully ruined. He didn't look back until he heard Malfoy calling to him again.

'Forgot your book, Potter!'

Harry's heart just about stopped. He'd left his latest library find, a folk tale about a Veela who'd married a king of Spain, lying in the grass. He quickly turned back and broke into a run, hoping to retrieve the book before Malfoy could get his hands on it, but no such luck; the blond swooped down to pick it up. As Harry approached, he could see Malfoy's expression shift from curiosity, to confusion, to mirth.

Harry screeched to a halt just as Malfoy was doubling over. 'You didn't actually believe me, did you?' he let out between peals of laughter.

'I—No! Of course not!' Harry said, quickly taking on a shade of red that rivalled the stripes on his tie.

'Potter, that was just a cover-up. I don't know Nott well enough to tell him I'm gay.'

Harry was struck speechless. Finally, he managed: 'You're… what?'

Malfoy smirked and tossed him the book. Harry fumbled to catch it as Malfoy swept past him toward the castle. 'I'm gay,' he repeated. 'And you could stand to be a little less obvious when you stare at someone.'

And with that, Harry was left on his own again, with the book in one hand, the kaleidoscope in the other, and more butterflies than Fleur had ever given him.

* * *

A/N: I didn't want to mention this in the first A/N, lest I spoil the story, but my interpretation of the prompt is that 'finding out' someone's not fully human doesn't necessarily mean that what they find out is true. ;)


End file.
